I have heard stories of guys taking a really thin wire and putting it through the drawstring for the cover with male/female plugs at each location where you tie the cover (beside driver and passenger usually). They wire this line into the alarm so that if a thief lifts the cover up it breaks the wire's connection and triggers the alarm (as the wire barely makes it around the boat enough to connect to itself again. I dont have any more details but it sounds pretty solid.

Do thieves really untie the cover before they jack your boat or stereo? Or do they just slice it wide open?? I'm sure some guys who have done installs will chime in. When I looked at it, they had a motion sensor that they would install upside down so it was looking at the floor. So shadows or lights or the cover moving wouldn't set it off. But someone stepping on the floor would.... then it doesn't matter if you have the cover on the boat or not.

I useed a mid grade alarm ( forget the brand?), and installed a shock sensor (someone jumps in the boat it goes off ( or trys to steal my prop). I put pin switches on all my compartments. If they open one the alarm goes off. The motion sensors are worthless on a boat, they give alot of false alarms.

Prior to all this I used to have a baby monitor in my boat. You cna hear anything around your boat. Even people whispering , is loud enough to wake you.

I used to run a simple DEI car alarm on my last VLX. It had the dual zone motion sensor and shock sensor. Worked very well for me, wish the siren was louder though. I didn't keep my boat on the water but think it would work great for a boat lift, I would just turn down the sensitivity on the shock sensor a bit.